Thursday, August 25, 2016

10.2016 Boys Adrift

Introduction:

Last month we briefly touched upon child development as Jack spent the first 5 years of his life living in Room. This month we delve further into the area of boyhood development and disturbing trends seen in this demographic.

Overview:

"Something scary is happening to boys today. From kindergarten to college, they’re less resilient and less ambitious than they were a mere twenty years ago. In fact, a third of men ages 22–34 are still living at home with their parents—about a 100 percent increase in the past twenty years. Parents, teachers, and mental health professionals are worried about boys. But until now, no one has come up with good reasons for their decline—nor, more important, with workable solutions to reverse this troubling trend. 

In Boys Adrift, family physician and research psychologist Leonard Sax tackles the problem head on, drawing on the very latest research and his vast experience with boys and their families. He argues that a combination of social and biological factors is creating an environment that is literally toxic to boys. Misguided overemphasis on reading and math as early as kindergarten, too much time spent playing video games, over-reliance on medication for attention deficit disorders (much more common in boys than in girls), and overlooked endocrine disturbances are actually causing damage to boys’ brains. 

Dr. Sax offers a wide range of reassuring remedies— including innovative ways parents can wean their sons away from video games, practical steps they can take to improve their sons’ schooling, and surprisingly simple life changes they can make to protect boys from the environmental estrogens that undermine boys’ motivation. 

Filled with moving success stories that will inspire parents and teachers everywhere, Boys Adrift points the way to a new future for today’s boys and young men."

Book Details:

Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Basic Books; Reprint edition (January 6, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0465072100
ISBN-13: 978-0465072101

Get Book: 

Amazon
Overdrive


Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Room

Book Club #12.
Lesson: If a man asks you to help him with a dog and you can't see the dog, don't follow him into his truck

About the Book:

Room

 

 Summary: 

Ma was kidnapped when she was 19 where she had a young boy named Jack. She raises him in Room, isolated from the real world spending each day following a schedule and hiding from Old Nick. When Jack turns 5, his mother decides he is old enough to learn the truth about her capture and Old Nick's identity as her captor and try to escape. Tv world is suddenly an actual real world outside of room. While Ma's memories of the real world gave her hope through the years and her stories of a much bigger world Jack has never experienced sound wonderful, Jack and Ma must adapt to their new reality. Jack is like an alien unable to comprehend social norms and his mother must realize how the world has changed during her time away and confront how the world view them.

 

Characters:

  • Ma
  • Jack
  • Old Nick
  • Ma's family members
  • Doctors, Nurses, and Staff
  • Police
  • Media

Questions:

1. What did you think of the authors choice to use the boys point of view- how would it be different if it was from another character (mother, object, etc)?
2. Who did you relate the most to?
3. What would you have done similar or different if you were in the same circumstance as the mother?
4. If you saw the movie how was it similar or different from the book?
5. How do you think the experience may affect Jack in the future?
6. Was there anything from your childhood that you may remember different than a family member or realize later was different than what you originally thought?
7. What did you think about how the boy used English? He would say things like "double more chocolatier" or say "big" instead of "size." 
8. What do you think of Jack getting a dog named Lucky? How do you think it would impact his life?
9. Jack begins to discover the nuances of things in the real world, e.g., fire departments are not TV but real. But even in the real world, they are sometimes for play. Do you remember doing this, or have you talked to kids who have taken things literally?
10. Do you think Ma regrets or feels guilty about not putting him up for adoption?
11. What did you like most about the book?
 

Conversation Summary:

Discussion topics:
  • What we would have done in Ma's predicament
  • Book realistic in terms of portraying young boy in captivity/media
  • Author's inspiration
  • Movie versus book
  • Most related to frustrated people characters
  • Childhood memories
  • Plato's cave analogy/differing versions of reality
  • Gender identity development
  • Adapting to social norms/unwritten norms
  • Travel and experiencing different ways of living

2/3 bears finished book and 1/3 saw movie

References:

1. Room: the movie
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3170832/

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

08.2016 Room

Introduction:

Back to fiction we go. This book is now a major motion picture and winner of best actress. A story of a mother and son and the beauty of their relationship and the world they build together despite harrowing circumstances.

Overview:

"To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world. . . . It's where he was born, it's where he and his Ma eat and sleep and play and learn. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma it's the prison where she has been held for seven years. Through her fierce love for her son, she has created a life for him in this eleven-by-eleven-foot space. But with Jack's curiosity building alongside her own desperation, she knows that Room cannot contain either much longer.

Room is a tale at once shocking, riveting, exhilarating--a story of unconquerable love in harrowing circumstances, and of the diamond-hard bond between a mother and her child."

Book Details:

Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; Reprint edition (September 25, 2012)
ISBN-10: 0316223239
ISBN-13: 978-0316223232

Get Book: 

Amazon
Overdrive


Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

Book Club #11.
Lesson: No ship is unsinkable.

About the Book:

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

 

 Summary: 

A large passenger ship, the Lusitania, is sunk by a German submarine. This highlights a historical moment in which the previous rules of war are broken, civilians are no longer safe and the power of the German U-boat is displayed. Warships and large cruise liners are quickly sunk.

 

Characters:

  • Cerman U-boat Captain
  • Various Lusitania passengers

Questions:

1. Which character did you relate to the most?
2. How important is it to use primary sources when writing a nonfiction? Do you care as a reader about what kind of research the author performed in preparing for a book?
3. What did you know about the Lusitania prior to reading this book and what new I formation surprised you?
4. What did you find captivating about the writing style of the author, and what would you have liked to be different?
5. Do you think that the US should have jumped into the war earlier? How might things have turned out differently?
6. What did you think about this perception of unsinkable ships during that era? Would you have taken the trip?
 

Conversation Summary:

Discussion topics:
  • previous knowledge about Lusitania, WWII, Uboats
  • Larson writing style - lots of detail
  • How much detail should be included
  • Progression of storyline
  • Researching for non-fiction books

1/3 bears finished book and 0/3 loved it
guess we should go back to fiction

References:

1. Erik Larson Google Talk, 4/28/2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRJ96wAa40A